Off Lease Dog Walking – Rally outside the GGNRA Open House MeetingWhen: March 7, 2011 – Monday
5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.Where: Ft. Mason Center, Building D, Marina Blvd. and Buchanan Street, San FranciscoWhat:Speak out for Off-Leash Dog Walking. Rally outside the GGNRA Open House Meeting. Golden Gate National Recreation Area has released a proposal to restrict dogs and off-lease dog walking in places like Fort Funston, Ocean Beach, Crissy Field, Marin Headlands, Muir Beach. Rally outside of the GGNRA open house meeting at Ft. Mason. The GGNRA will not have a microphone available for the public to commet on its proposal.Bring a photo of your dog, a sign expressing your message to the GGNRA.Sponsored by: Crissy Field Dog Group, DogPAC of SF, Ocean Beach DOG, SF ProDog, Save Off-Leash Dog Walking in the SF Bay Area, SFDog.Information: saveoffleash@gmail.com”

“Meet and talk with the medical and planning teams for the proposed hospital at Van Ness & Geary. Learn about patient services, architecture, streetscape, traffic, transportation, construction management, and CPMC’s citywide system of care, community partnerships, and more.”

First up, here’s the news. Monthly rental prices have been set for all the duplexes (the ones with letters in the addresses) at about $5500 per month, mas or menos. And Minimum Bid price floors have been set for the three single family residences. See?

Mmmm, the minimum price set for 1809, the smallest non-duplex, is the outlier here. 1811 is twice the house of 1809 (IMO, of course – square footage-wise, it’s 63% more house), but the minimum bid price for 1811 is only 11% higher. Mmmm.

Etude sur le mise-en-scene:

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But guess what, you can see these places yourself on:

“Wednesday, September 8 from 11am to 3pm.”

Uh oh, here come the Lexuseses – it must be time for Open House!

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There’s no good place to lock up your bike, so oh well:

Here’s the front view on WymanAvenue – lots of dogs were about, despite the “no pets” policy for renters. (There might have been more than a few looky-lou dog-walkers about – I talked to some of them myself.)

Now, it’s time for some interiors:

Here’s a kitchen (from Building 1811, the pick of the litter at 10K plus per month):

…and a bath:

…and a living room:

(Man, I’d want to take a hacksaw to the pipe on that hanging light fixture to get the bottom of it above the altitude of my melon…)

….and a master bedroom way up high on the third floor:

And the “unfinished” basement of 1809, well it’s just awesome. They don’t even count this space in the square footage:

You could have quite the workshop (or ping pong tournament) down there. Plenty of square footage:

But, mind the humidity:

Now all that’s all fine and dandy, but it seems a few shortcuts were taken during the long process of refurbishment. For example, this window doesn’t have weatherstripping, so it closes unevenly:

Compare that with what you get at the recently remade LandMark Presidio apartments just down the road. They’ve taken the time to make sure the gaps are plugged over there. See?

Anyway, back to Wyman Ave…

Some of the fittings are what you call “builder’s grade.” Straight-out-of-Home-Depot is good enough for me, but I don’t think this plastic stuff here is necessarily green and I don’t think it matches the historic nature or whatnot of this $10k+ per month rental unit. So what’s it doing here?

The cheapest closet light pull-cord-stretchy-string and aluminum stopper-bobber you could imagine:

Are we done here? I don’t know. Maybe they’ll get to adding a globe around this exterior light or maybe they won’t:

And here’s your PVC / copper interchange. All right…

And don’t look now, but they have PG&E SmartMeters all over. (Can you see the EMF symbol part of the SmartMeter logo on this gas mater? Wow, that wasn’t the right choice for PG&E to make back in the day. But since this meter doesn’t have an LCD display, you can’t really tell what makes it new and special except for the knowledge that it transmits wirelessly. Of course, it’s those wireless transmissions that people are most upset about. Oh well.)

Now, if you’re into it, you better act fast, is all I can say.

They’ll take a bid going up to something like five years on the houses. I’m thinking that the longer rental terms are what they’re referring to by the phrase “Rent Escalation Factor.”

“YOU’RE INVITED! Join us for a special Open House tolearn more about how the Transbay Temporary Terminal will operate. The Temporary Terminal will serve as temporary home to AC Transit, Muni, Greyhound, Golden Gate Transit, Lynx, and SamTrans until the new Transit Center is completed in 2017.

WHEN: Tuesday, August 3, 2010

TIME: 4-7pm

WHERE: Transbay Temporary Terminal, Main Street at Howard Street

WHO: The event is open to the public.Transit riders who currently use the Transbay Terminal are encouraged to attend.

FEATURING Tours of the open air facility, refreshments, giveaways and more.”

This was the scene last night at 901 Market on the wrong side of Fifth Street, where Urban Realty Co, Inc. held a meet-and-greet to show off the CityPlace project planned at 935-965 Market Street. The event attracted plenty of media attention but turnout wasn’t all that heavy, at least at first:

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Would you like another quarter-million square feet of “value-based retail” in your Mid-Market area? That’s the issue of the day.

The Wizard of Oz Market Street?

Let’s see what’s in store for us, behind the curtain. Is this a Yale Box?

You Make The Call:

The view from the Tenderloin:

Stevenson now:

And Stevenson in The Future:

Market Street now:

And Market Street in The Future:

I’m sold. So there’s no reason to actually attend the meeting. Leave us depart into Autumn’s chill:

This was how it looked back in the day on Market Street near the Old Navy Flagship Store at the intersection of Fourth and Towne Market. The Church of Scientology had some of its members do some outreach, perhaps they still do that these days.

Anyway, you touch “the cans” and that shows how much stress you have, or something. (Actually, one thing the test tells you how much your grip changes when you hold the cans – do you think that’s a useful measure of anything?)

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So, one problem is that the whole idea is ridiculous and another is that the Scientologist him/herself might be pressured into buying one of the E-Meters the metal can things are connected to. That’s something on the order of $4000 – an awful lot for a P.O.S., really. Even the eBay price seems to have no relationship to the cost of the parts used to make it. So who’s the real victim in this photo? Hard to tell.

“The man from the front came over and said it was a “stress tester” and I immediately volunteered (at this point my date is wondering how fast he can drop me off). I held these silver canisters in my hands and watched this needle.

Scientologist: How’s work is going?
A: Fine.
Scientologist: What is your boss’ name?
A: Erica
[Needle was pretty steady.]
Scientologist: What’s your Mom’s name?
A: Pat
[Needle moves up a bit.]
Scientologist: What’s your Dad’s name?
A: Bob.
[Needle jumps.]
Scientologist: Ah…there is some tension with your Dad!
A: No, in fact, I am closer to him than my Mom. (I do understand why that’s a safe bet – most of my friends have issues with their Dad.)
[Scientologist ignores this comment and moves on.]
Scientologist: Are you married or dating?
A: This guy right here. (I should write a book on what not to do when you just start dating someone.)
[Needle moves up a bit.]
Scientologist: Well what would you say is causing you the most stress in your life right now? (Reminded me of when Kramer pretended to be the movie phone guy, “Well why don’t you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see?”)”